


come mourning light

by grandmas_ghost (nap_princess)



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Character Death, F/M, Juvia my Queen, Meredy my cinnamonroll, Modern AU, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 19:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nap_princess/pseuds/grandmas_ghost
Summary: Now we sit in your car and our love is a ghost / I'm gonna mess your life up, look out lovers!– Gruvia, modern AUGRUVIA WEEK 2018 - DAY 6: NIGHTMARE(written in reverse)





	come mourning light

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hard Feelings / Loveless](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/388007) by Lorde. 



** come mourning light **

* * *

 Please could you be tender?  
And I will sit close to you,  
Let's give it a minute before we admit that we're through.

– **Lorde** , _Hard Feelings_

* * *

 Bet you wanna rip my heart out, bet you wanna skip my calls now,  
Well guess what? I like that.  
'Cause I'm gonna mess your life up, gonna wanna tape my mouth shut,  
Look out, lovers!

– **Lorde** , _Loveless_

* * *

* * *

It felt like a terrible nightmare.

"Why didn't Gray-sama tell Juvia?" She asks, heart beating wildly in her chest. Her heart's working itself so hard that it aches. Her heart hurts. It hurts _a lot_. This **can'** t be real.

He doesn't dare look at her. Even when there are tears in her eyes, she scares the living daylight out of him. Though, that doesn't stop the bitter smile forming on his lips.

"Gray-sama?" Juvia calls – no, _pleads_.

He laughs at the ground before his eyes slide back up to look her straight in the eyes. His stare had no effect on her. They're both dead inside. He asks her back, "What's there to tell? Someone's dead, Juvia, and there's nothing we can do about it."

* * *

{ Guess this is the winter our bodies are young and blue }

* * *

It's late when he picks up his phone and calls her. There's no point playing cat and mouse anymore, he's going to get caught soon. Two months was a good run … maybe. _Probably?_ Who knows? Not him. He's just a kid, what does he know?

It's whatever. May as well bite the bullet and tell her now.

When Juvia answers the phone, groggy sounding and disoriented, he almost cries there and then. But he doesn't. He _can't_. Gray mentally tells himself to suck it up and bottle his emotions because crying won't solve anything.

Gray tells her he wants to meet up and see her one more time.

But Juvia can tell by the tone of his voice that it's more. Half of Juvia expects Gray's seriousness to be a prank. She wanted to lighten the mood and for him to take her back. A month apart was long enough, right? In her head, Gray was calling her to give her a heads up, then he'll show up at her house with a boombox and serenade her. She wants him to sing her a song, what other reason is there for him to come over so late?

* * *

{ It's late and this song is for you }

* * *

Gray drives away, hands moving mechanically and eyes unblinking on the road ahead.

He doesn't know what he's feeling. He's always been the type to leap without looking. Do first, ask questions later. But, right now …

Right now, he thinks this _thing_ at the pit of his gut is a hint of regret.

* * *

{ Cause I remember the rush, when forever was us, before all of the winds of regret and mistrust,  
Now we sit in your car and our love is a ghost }

* * *

"So here we are, your house …" He says almost hesitantly. Like some lost kid who isn't sure why he's here or why he's doing this.

And this makes Juvia hesitate too. Her back in turned to him as she makes a move to exit out of the truck. The engine is still rumbling as she feels her weight shift.

"Are you going?" He asks her, almost a polite way of saying 'Please get out of my car'.

She guesses that she should get going. After all, he did just break up with her out of the blue. Honestly, she's too numb to think about it. First, her best friend disappears off the face of the earth, and now _this_.

"Good-bye, Gray-sama." Juvia finally says then climbs out and shuts the passenger door close. She doesn't notice how his truck looks more beat up but she does sense how Gray is trying oh-so hard not to fall apart in front of her. Her heart creaks at the weight of his pain.

"Bye, Juvia." He responses, not even making eye contact. His voice sounds muffled through the glass. He doesn't even wait for her to walk into her house before driving away.

He _used_ to. But she guesses not now. Not anymore.

'Bye, Juvia' – His words echo in her head. She expected their farewell to be a bit more heartfelt and emotional but it wasn't. She could tell he lost the love he has for her by the sound of his voice.

Or maybe it was never there to begin with?

Because if he did love her then he would never have hurt her like this.

* * *

{ Well, I guess I should go,  
Yeah,  
I guess I should go }

* * *

A month passes, he's not exactly himself and she isn't either.

Gray watches Juvia watch the rain as they sit in his car. It's busted up and old; the heating is trash, the radio is ancient and this stupid hunk of metal has held so many memories of them and more (so _much_ more).

He doesn't say a word. He knows know what to say exactly. His tongue feels uncomfortably dry and his throat feels clogged. Thoughts run through his head faster than he can keep them. The gap between his thoughts and the words forming at the back of his mouth is to wide. So he just continues this silence as he gives her a side-ways look.

Thunder cracks and grey storm clouds roll by, dumping buckets of water over the roof of Gray's car. Juvia's eyes are shiny and wet. Her fingers lace together but her thumb strays, rubbing circles on the protruding bone of her wrist.

_Skinny,_ He remembers thinking as he finally pulls his eyes away from her and at the rain.

It's so thin that he swears he could snap it by accident. She's not eating enough – _hasn'_ t been eating enough.

"I'm sorry." He somehow manages to say through his clogged-up throat.

.

.

.

She doesn't reply and he doesn't think she heard him.

* * *

{ I light all the candles, cut flowers for all my rooms,  
I care for myself the way I used to care about you }

* * *

Juvia Lockser is a tearful mess when Gray picks her up. She's incoherent, sobbing and mumbling words he can't exactly string into a complete sentence.

(He does catch the words 'Meredy', 'missing' and 'Where did she go? Juvia's so so **so** worried')

He doesn't know what to say at the moment. He's pretty shitty with expressing himself. So he just pretends that he knows what's best, he keeps her busy and tries to kiss her worries away.

* * *

{ These days we kiss and we keep busy }

* * *

**Where are you?** Juvia texts and waits.

Juvia's been waiting for two days now. About fifty miss calls and a thousand unanswered messages. Meredy can't keep up her absence. School ends, eight hours pass, her best friend doesn't reply.

* * *

{ The waves come after midnight,  
I call from underwater }

* * *

"Are you sure you want to be with me?" Gray asks, bright and early on a Tuesday.

Juvia glares at him in return.

Why was he acting like this? Like he was bad news or whatever because he wasn't. He _fucking_ wasn't. Is he testing her love? Is he worried about not being good enough for her? Was it that failed pop quiz or something? Sure he didn't exactly score well on the last quiz but so what? _So what?_

She answers, "Of course, Juvia does! She loves you!"

Despite the convincing and her bold proclamation if putting her heart on her sleeve, he asks one more time because he doesn't think she understands, "Are you sure?"

* * *

{ Why even try to get right?  
When you've outgrown a lover,  
The whole world knows but you }

* * *

"You need to tell her," The girl says, her voice sounding transparent as her cold hands grab a hold of him and doesn't let go. Her green eyes are glaring holes into his skull. He wonders if she's always had specks of red in her eyes or if that was bl –

He argues, fighting a ghost of a person. "I can't!"

"You must!" She yells back.

"I can't, Meredy! Just leave me alone!"

Her fingers wrap around his hand, her thumb pressed to the middle of his palm. She's frighteningly scary, "You need to tell Juvia." Meredy says with more force.

"How?" Gray asks. "I love her, it'll break her heart."

Meredy's eyes glow and she hisses at him, "She's made you weak." – After three years of being together, can she really blame him for turning so soft?

* * *

{ Three years loved you every single day,  
Made me weak }

* * *

A noise vibrates, causing Gray to jolt himself awake (not that he was getting enough sleep to begin with). What is it? The shudder of the window? Knocking on the door? The terror and the horror and the trauma?

Gray gasps for air as sweat beads down his neck. What the fuck was that? A bad dream, a nightmare, a hallucination?

He stares at his bedroom mirror, red-eyed and energy seeping. He swears he sees her standing at the corner of his room with the dress he last saw her in and messy pink hair drenched with rain and shards of glass from his broken headlights.

* * *

{ It was real for me,  
Yup, real for me }

* * *

His blood freezes when he cracks his tired eyes open.

Meredy's standing in front his bedroom mirror in the dark; studying her reflection, smoothening her dress, patting down pink flyaway hair, touching up her lip-gloss. Her stare strays, moving from her reflection to something at the corner of the eye.

If he wasn't so drained, he would have had a heart attack due to her sudden presence.

"Oh," She says, smiling now, clover-green eyes shining. There are red specks in them. She turns and faces him, "You're awake. Good morning,"

He only stares. It's probably three AM or something, the idea of the warm sun and happiness seems like a distant memory.

"Not surprised I'm in your room?" She asks, turning back to her reflection.

Guilt eats him up alive. Gray yells at her, telling her to get out, he's in denial. "This isn't happening! You're _not_ really here! You're **not** real!"

* * *

{ Now I'll fake it every single day 'til I don't need fantasy, 'til I feel you leave }

* * *

Gray stares around Juvia's room as his girlfriend hums and dances to the beat of the music, using her hairbrush as a make-shift microphone.

It's weird – the way he's staring at everything like he's trying to remember the layout of her room in case someone suddenly comes in and steal Juvia's fairy lights or the gifted clover-green throw rug or dresser with _Disney Princess_ stickers on them.

Finally, his dark eyes land on Juvia's memory wall filled with polaroid pictures and bits and bobs. He stares at a picture of Juvia and Meredy – best friends, linked arm to arm. Pink and blue. Inseparable and against the world.

Juvia points her hairbrush at Gray's direction and exclaims, "Sing, Gray-sama!"

"I can't. I have a cold, remember?" Gray reasons, sniffing for effect.

"That's what Gray-sama gets for standing in the rain for so long." Juvia nags a little, hairbrush pointing between his eyes. "But, Juvia got Gray-sama orange juice so he should be all healed up by next week."

"Yeah," He laughs. "Thanks for doing that for me."

And for a moment, everything seemed fine.

* * *

{ But I still remember everything, how we'd drift buying groceries, how you'd dance for me }

* * *

"I'm sorry, this wasn't supposed to happen." He says to her. He doesn't know if he's crying of it's the rain caught in his eyes.

* * *

{ I'll start letting go of little things 'til I'm so far away from you,  
Far away from you,  
… Yeah }

* * *

"Meredy?" The words escape his lips before he can even access what's just happened between the pouring rain, his rickety truck, a broken headlight and the speed limit that told him to slow down.

But he didn't slow down. He didn't want to because it was cold and his truck sucks and he wanted to go home sooner so he sped up and –

"Meredy!" He yells as he finds himself standing outside his car, hand clutching hard to his door, holding him in place. Then he rushes to her, inspecting her wounds. The rain soaks through his shirt, sending shivers down his back.

She's all broken bones and long pink hair and –

**Dead**.

She's fucking dead.

"I killed her." Gray realizes he's just killed someone. He killed his girlfriend's best friend.

* * *

**end**

**Author's Note:**

> – 6 April 2018


End file.
